Where is the correct place to place your hand in the bell of a French Horn?

Question:My festival judge told me I was doing it wrong!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My festival judge told me I was doing it wrong!

Extracted from this .pdf
http://www.csinstitute.org/content/pdf/B...

One of the most important techniques associated with
horn playing, and one that should be learned from the first
lesson, is that of correct right hand placement in the bell.
The right hand serves three main purposes in horn
performance: 1) adjusting tone quality; 2) adjusting pitch;
3) hand-muting or “stopping.”
Not the least of the factors contributing to the
characteristic tone quality of the French horn is that of the
placement of the right hand in the bell. If the bell is too
open, the horn quality becomes rather blatant; if the bell is
too closed, the tone becomes stuffy and lacks resonance.

The wrist should be bent in sufficiently to make a slight
“cupped” position in the palm. The fingers should be held
straight and together, the bottom of the thumb resting on
the side of the index finger with no opening between the
thumb and the index finger.

In this position, the right hand should be placed on the
far side of the bell, with the thumb knuckle lightly
touching the upper part of the bell and the fingers
following the contour of the bell. The distance which the
right hand should be placed into the bell, and the amount
of cupping, will be determined by the size of the player’s
hand and by the quality of tone desired.

The player should imagine the tone passing along the
palm of the hand, but not directly into it. It is important
that the player also assume this hand position when
tuning. Furthermore, in the interests of matching tone
quality, the player should cup the hand slightly more when
playing on the Bb side of the double horn.

The right can do much toward correcting slight
intonation problems. Increasing the amount of handcupping
in the bell can lower the pitch by at least a semitone
and, conversely, opening up the bell can raise the
pitch slightly. Such hand adjustments naturally affect, to
some extent, the quality of tone and this technique should
be employed only for minor pitch adjustments on isolated
tones.